Sunday, February 25, 2007

I hate to say I told you so, but...


Charles at LGF observes that a certain band of --er-- leftwing "zealots" have ramped up their censorship of conservative posts on Digg. They do so by marking stories -- even if perfectly accurate and newsworthy -- as spam (such as this, this, and this).

In August of 2006, I predicted the failure of Digg-style sites for general, politically-charged news. It looks like that assessment was accurate:

This fundamental flaw in the Digg-approach to general news is worth pointing out: some users -- on both sides of the political spectrum -- will abuse the collaboration tools in order to push their own side's agenda.

For general news, I believe what is required is a new voting formula. It must encompass stories that are spun to the right or left; those that are truly centrist; and (of course) spam and adware.

Last year, Spinr attempted the feat, but it has since shut down. The jamokes who master this genre will end up billionaires. Maybe George Soros will fund such an effort. Hey, one can dream, can't one?

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